The Evidence for Weight Loss Supplements
With the number of overweight and obese adults in the United States estimated to be over 2/3 of the total adult population, it's no surprise that in 2010 US consumers spent an estimated $2.4 billion on weight loss supplements and meal replacements.

Good News for Those Who Love Chocolate, Wine or Tea
I've talked before about the positive effects of polyphenols, which are found in fruits like grapes and in tea, red wine, cocoa and coffee. The largest subtype of polyphenols are called flavonoids. There's been some really interesting research linking the intake of flavonoids and a reduced risk of Alzheimer's Disease and dementia in general.

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Have a cup of (green) tea

The polyphenols (antioxidants) in green
tea have been shown in animal and in vitro studies to have protective
benefits against cardiovascular disease and cancer. Human studies, however,
have been small and their results varied. Drs. Kuriyama and Shimazu and
their colleagues in Japan made use of data from a large, long-term prospective
study to analyze the relationship between green tea consumption and
the mortality rates due to cardiovascular disease, cancer, and all other
reasons for death (JAMA 2006;166:1255-1265).

The study, called the Ohsaki National Health Insurance Cohort Study,
enrolled 40,530 men and women between the ages of 40 and 79 who lived in
the Miyagi Prefecture in northeastern Japan. (In this region, over half
the population drinks 3 or more cups of green tea per day.) Persons with
a history of cancer, heart attack, or stroke were excluded from the study.
The researchers administered a questionnaire that asked about the subjects' "everyday
diet" and requested information on such items as frequency of green
tea, oolong tea, black tea, or coffee consumption; tobacco use; exercise
level; body weight; height; and 36 food items.

After 7 and 11 years, the researchers identified all those study participants
who had died and ascertained their cause of death, then correlated their
cause of death with their level of green tea intake. They found that in
general, the more green tea an individual drank, the lower their risk of
death due to all causes. Indeed, that association was stronger for women
than for men: For women who drank 5 or more cups of green tea per day,
their risk of death was reduced by 23% over those women who drank only
a cup or less. For men, that reduced risk was only 12%.

For risk of death due to cardiovascular disease, once again women enjoyed
greater protective effects from green tea drinking than men: their risk
of death from cardiovascular disease, for those drinking 5 or more cups
of tea per day, was reduced by 31%. By contrast, the risk of death from
cancer did not appear to be affected by green tea consumption, regardless
of sex or other variables such as smoking, exercise, or Body Mass Index.

The researchers theorize that the reason women enjoyed greater protective
effects from drinking green tea is that men were more likely to smoke:
the inverse associations between green tea consumption and smoking was
stronger for those who never smoked. They also noted that the protective
effects were not necessarily linked to greater levels of green tea intake:
drinking at least one cup of green tea a day had some protective effects
for both men and women.

What this means for you:

Consider having a cup (or more) of green tea in place of another beverage
in your daily routine. I enjoy it in the afternoons in place of another
cup of coffee. It's a nice break - and your heart will thank you.